As we reveal today, councils in North Wales are owed a shocking £200,000 in unpaid parking tickets stretching back months. That is valuable lost revenue which ought to be in council coffers and used for the public good.

It’s unfair on law-abiding motorists who do the decent thing and pay up if they receive a parking ticket. Why should some drivers get away with it scott free?

Furthermore, as council spokesmen rightly point out, fines discourage drivers from parking dangerously and in a manner which inconveniences other road-users.

But are councils becoming far too zealous in the way they dish out tickets in the first place? Let’s remember that many people drive into our towns for the very laudable reason that they intend to spend money in our shops, and it is vital to our economy they continue to do so.

There is strong evidence that many traders are at breaking point in places such as Rhyl and Llandudno because drivers are being clobbered with parking tickets, even when they stop for just a few minutes.

It’s not much of a victory is it, for the local council to pocket a £30 fine (assuming it gets paid) if their shopkeepers as a result lose hundreds of pounds because fed up drivers choose never to return?

Smoked out

SMOKERS often get a hard time but this is ridiculous. They already pay through the nose for their tobacco because of the punitive amount of tax levied.

Now a nightclub in Bangor with an eye for a moneyspinner is demanding their customers pay 50p to enjoy a smoke in the street outside, claiming it’s a “clean-up charge”.

It sounds suspiciously like a rip-off which clubbers will be able to ill afford. Serve the place right if they take their custom elsewhere.